Overwhelming grief and an unexpected life preserver

Every time I think there is some hope for a break in the grief, I run into a wall. Today is the fourth month anniversary. And the grief feels as overwhelming as the first moment. I want to just walk around screaming his name. And Where are you? And How could you have left me? And How do I live without you? And I miss you so much.

My cats and horses help me. I joined a Bereavement Group and find talking with other women, okay other widows, helps. But it is the between times that get me. When I stop doing and lift up my head.

Oh I can keep busy—I can visit friends, go to events, clean the house, do the laundry, go see the horses, work on the taxes, take some photos, ship out some items, work on my websites, write someone's copy, pay the monthly bills—all not working for me right now. I don't even want to call anyone. Don't feel like talking. So I find myself here. Writing. Thinking. Feeling. Grieving. Grieving. Grieving.

I've been reading about staying with my feelings, going into my pain. Accepting. Acknowledging. Being in the moment. Problem is I feel like I am drowning. That the abyss will swallow me. And I suppose it is a testament to my life force that I don't want to be swallowed. That there is still a fight left in me. I just don't know how to survive without Rob.

I found this poem, again. Rob believed that he had experienced a life/death choice during his surgery. And wrote this poem from his experience. I always read it thinking of cancer and illness and death. Now I feel he wrote it as a life line to me.

Ever/Bardo

By Robert Greenebaum

Have you ever dropped out of time

Have you ever been where

There are no directions

Where there is no bottom

But you are not falling

Where there is no volition

No will

No lies

Where the idea of hope

Is not yet emergent

Where even blankness

Has withered away

Maybe you have been there—or maybe not

It is not a place one chooses to go

It just happens

Maybe in an instant

If this has ever happened to you

Perhaps you might be interested in this:

Try it on for size; see if it fits; learn it

Word by word

Each word is a vessel into which you

Can pour your own meaning

Yet it is a vessel

A vessel hewn from within the bardo

If you use it, be patient, be diligent,

Be stubborn, and never give up

For a billion, billion lifetimes:

I

May there now arise in this very moment

Pervasive ease of well-being

II

Throughout the entire mind

And body with no breaks,

Holes, or lapses.

III

May the entire mind and body

Be wiped completely clean

Of any and all ill-ness

And all dis-ease

IV

May there now arise in this very moment

Pervasive ease of well-being

If you take up the mantra

Never lay it down

I pass it on to you from within the bardo

May you receive its beneficial effects